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| Fr. Paul Kramer |
Fr.
Kramer: “Any Catholic, be he pope or
pauper, excommunicates himself by the
sin of heresy, because such a one no
longer has the Catholic Faith. With or vwithout (sic) the law, the heretic
by the very nature of the sin of heresy ceases to be a Catholic and is incapable of holding office.
Bellarmine explains this in De Romano Pontifice.”
As we have
already demonstrated in many of our ten
feature articles against Fr. Kramer in the last month, Bellarmine says no such
thing (we have also shown how Kramer misunderstands what Bellarmine does say). And this, of course, is why Kramer did not provide any quotations from
Bellarmine to back up his claim. Kramer continued:
“By
the act itself, the heretic, apostate or schismatic inflicts the penalty of excommunication upon
himself. This has always been the case, and remains so under the 1983 Code. …
Salza’s explanation on excommunication reveals a profound ignorance of the
subject matter. There is not a canonist
in the entire worled who agrees with his eccentric interpretation of Canon Law
on excommunication. During the years I spent in Rome, I read my works of
diverse authors on Canon Law and spoke with a good number of professors of
Canon Law. They all knew perfectly well
what excommunication latae sentenciae means – only Salza and Siscoe do not”.
If Fr. Kramer had actually
read the book before launching his attack against it on his Facebook page, he would have found that TOFP defines excommunication precisely the same
way the sources he cites explain and define it.
In fact, we cite some of the exact same authorities he does, including
the one he cited immediately after the above citation.
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| Screen shot from Kramer's Facebook post |
In his lengthy treatise on the loss of office for a heretical Pope, Cajetan explained this very point and noted that the doctors carried this point so far that, according to St. Thomas, a Pope could not even confer on another the power to excommunicate him. In Cajetan’s own words:
“Every excommunication, which is
an ecclesiastical censure (and that is our subject), is based on positive law, which does not have coercive power over the Pope in the ecclesiastical
forum; whereas excommunication implies coercion in the ecclesiastical
forum, we must conclude that the Pope
cannot incur any censure. The doctors carry this point so far that St.
Thomas says that the Pope cannot confer upon anyone the power to excommunicate
him. Albert the Great and Saint Bonaventure are of the same opinion, as Lord
Juan de Torquemada reports of them.”[1]
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| Screenshot from Kramer's Facebook post |
conceded the point. He wrote:
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| From Cekada's article |
cannot commit a true delictum of heresy
or incur an excommunication.”
As we explain in "True or False Pope?" the excommunication of the former pope follows the Church establishing the crime of heresy and declaring the See vacant. Only then is he subject to the punishment of excommunication.
